In the video that follows Sir Patrick Stewart talks about the funding cuts on the arts in the UK:
http://trekmovie.com/2011/04/08/video-p ... ding-cuts/
My 2 cents on that:
1) Our economical policies are focused on making more money for the sake of money and not using that money to promote culture, the arts, science and education. People seem to have forgotten that money is the means to achieve all these and not the goal itself
2) In almost every sentence he said I could replace the words art/artists with science/scientists and still not alter the meaning. The reason for that is the fact the science funding in the UK received some huge cuts in the last 3 years in the name of better economic policies. One might say: "You are a Greek guy living in Denmark, what the hell do you care?". Well, I do care about science in general just like Mr Stewart cares about the arts in general. Also, last year my department received >450 applications from really highly skilled people (many of them coming from the UK) for 2 postdoc positions. This of course means that most of them will be unemployed at the end of this season, just like all the actors who will be unemployed due to the arts funding cuts
.